File photo of a model of the Beidou Satellite Navigation System.Photo:Xinhua

In a blind love to homegrown tech, Chinese iPhone users are downloading apps purporting to offer homegrown BeiDou Navigation System (BDS). The apps have zoomed up the download ranking on Apple's App Store China, even as experts say the apps have no connection with the BDS.

On July 31, China announced that its homegrown BeiDou-3 Navigation Satellite System is officially providing global services, a move that greatly boosted national morale given the domestic positioning system's ability to offer major services to global users, rivalling other global positioning services such the US' GPS, Russia's GLONASS and the EU's Galileo.

The BDS covers more than 200 countries and regions, with more than 100 million users and 200 million daily services.

As a result, mobile apps bearing the name of BDS have blazed a trail on China's Apple Store and Android Store, with many of them rife with advertisements, although leading experts are saying that these apps have only he faintest connection to BDS, the Economic Daily reported.

An app named BeiDou Navigation was the most downloaded apps for a time, surpassing other apps offered by powerful industry incumbents such as AutoNavi and Baidu, the report said.

On Saturday, BeiDou Navigation app ranked 68 on China's App Store free app ranking, with raking in 124,000 reviews with many expressing support for the homegrown navigation technology. However, many of the reviews also suggested there should be less advertisement while the app is running.  

App users suggested the adverts made the app seem like a "fake interface" for BDS and was merely aimed at cashing in on people's passion for native tech that was pumped up by the media's highlighting of the advent of BDS, the Economic Daily report said.

Lai Jizhou, a professor with Nanjing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics, said the "BeiDou Navigation" app actually has no direct connection to China's BDS system.

The app also garnered 5 million downloads on Android download platforms, the report said. 

The BeiDou Navigation app updated its introduction on Saturday, saying it has no connection with the BDS, other the name. It added that it had never charged users for using its app.

Experts noted that the BDS system is built into handsets and doesn't required an app to operate. They emphasized it's important for BDS to have more users for the system to grow.

More than 70 percent of the handsets in China, including those made by Huawei and Xiaomi, have already installed a BDS chip, although many new Apple devises don't support the system. 

Apple Inc told the Global Times on Thursday that its iPhone 11 models use BeiDou as part of its location data system, although Apple's official Chinese website suggests that the iPhone 11 only has GPS and GLONASS systems built-in.

However, even handsets that support the BDS, many of GPS' issues, such as a lack of precision positioning in places like a road under an overpass, won't be solved automatically, an industry insider told the Global Times on condition of anonymity. To solve that issue "would require the building of ground-level signal augmentation stations."

Global Times